restic/doc/050_restore.rst

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#####################
Restoring from backup
#####################

Restoring from a snapshot
=========================

Restoring a snapshot is as easy as it sounds, just use the following
command to restore the contents of the latest snapshot to
``/tmp/restore-work``:

.. code-block:: console

    $ restic -r /srv/restic-repo restore 79766175 --target /tmp/restore-work
    enter password for repository:
    restoring <Snapshot of [/home/user/work] at 2015-05-08 21:40:19.884408621 +0200 CEST> to /tmp/restore-work

Use the word ``latest`` to restore the last backup. You can also combine
``latest`` with the ``--host`` and ``--path`` filters to choose the last
backup for a specific host, path or both.

.. code-block:: console

    $ restic -r /srv/restic-repo restore latest --target /tmp/restore-art --path "/home/art" --host luigi
    enter password for repository:
    restoring <Snapshot of [/home/art] at 2015-05-08 21:45:17.884408621 +0200 CEST> to /tmp/restore-art

Use ``--exclude`` and ``--include`` to restrict the restore to a subset of
files in the snapshot. For example, to restore a single file:

.. code-block:: console

    $ restic -r /srv/restic-repo restore 79766175 --target /tmp/restore-work --include /work/foo
    enter password for repository:
    restoring <Snapshot of [/home/user/work] at 2015-05-08 21:40:19.884408621 +0200 CEST> to /tmp/restore-work

This will restore the file ``foo`` to ``/tmp/restore-work/work/foo``.

You can use the command ``restic ls latest`` or ``restic find foo`` to find the
path to the file within the snapshot. This path you can then pass to
``--include`` in verbatim to only restore the single file or directory.

There are case insensitive variants of ``--exclude`` and ``--include`` called
``--iexclude`` and ``--iinclude``. These options will behave the same way but
ignore the casing of paths.

Restore using mount
===================

Browsing your backup as a regular file system is also very easy. First,
create a mount point such as ``/mnt/restic`` and then use the following
command to serve the repository with FUSE:

.. code-block:: console

    $ mkdir /mnt/restic
    $ restic -r /srv/restic-repo mount /mnt/restic
    enter password for repository:
    Now serving /srv/restic-repo at /mnt/restic
    Use another terminal or tool to browse the contents of this folder.
    When finished, quit with Ctrl-c here or umount the mountpoint.

Mounting repositories via FUSE is only possible on Linux, macOS and FreeBSD.
On Linux, the ``fuse`` kernel module needs to be loaded and the ``fusermount``
command needs to be in the ``PATH``. On macOS, you need `FUSE for macOS
<https://osxfuse.github.io/>`__. On FreeBSD, you may need to install FUSE
and load the kernel module (``kldload fuse``).

Restic supports storage and preservation of hard links. However, since
hard links exist in the scope of a filesystem by definition, restoring
hard links from a fuse mount should be done by a program that preserves
hard links. A program that does so is ``rsync``, used with the option
--hard-links.

Printing files to stdout
========================

Sometimes it's helpful to print files to stdout so that other programs can read
the data directly. This can be achieved by using the `dump` command, like this:

.. code-block:: console

    $ restic -r /srv/restic-repo dump latest production.sql | mysql

If you have saved multiple different things into the same repo, the ``latest``
snapshot may not be the right one. For example, consider the following
snapshots in a repo:

.. code-block:: console

    $ restic -r /srv/restic-repo snapshots
    ID        Date                 Host        Tags        Directory
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------
    562bfc5e  2018-07-14 20:18:01  mopped                  /home/user/file1
    bbacb625  2018-07-14 20:18:07  mopped                  /home/other/work
    e922c858  2018-07-14 20:18:10  mopped                  /home/other/work
    098db9d5  2018-07-14 20:18:13  mopped                  /production.sql
    b62f46ec  2018-07-14 20:18:16  mopped                  /home/user/file1
    1541acae  2018-07-14 20:18:18  mopped                  /home/other/work
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------

Here, restic would resolve ``latest`` to the snapshot ``1541acae``, which does
not contain the file we'd like to print at all (``production.sql``).  In this
case, you can pass restic the snapshot ID of the snapshot you like to restore:

.. code-block:: console

    $ restic -r /srv/restic-repo dump 098db9d5 production.sql | mysql

Or you can pass restic a path that should be used for selecting the latest
snapshot. The path must match the patch printed in the "Directory" column,
e.g.:

.. code-block:: console

    $ restic -r /srv/restic-repo dump --path /production.sql latest production.sql | mysql

It is also possible to ``dump`` the contents of a whole folder structure to
stdout. To retain the information about the files and folders Restic will
output the contents in the tar (default) or zip format:

.. code-block:: console

    $ restic -r /srv/restic-repo dump latest /home/other/work > restore.tar
 
.. code-block:: console

    $ restic -r /srv/restic-repo dump -a zip latest /home/other/work > restore.zip